This week on The Big Book Project I’m joined by Nick During, publicist at New York Review Books, for a deep dive into Henrik Pontoppidan’s monumental novel A Fortunate Man translated by Paul Larkin.
Pontoppidan, who won the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature, gives us one of the great portraits of ambition, love, and disillusionment at the turn of the 20th century. His protagonist, Per, dreams of modernizing Denmark through a grand engineering project, but struggles with depression, family estrangement, and a doomed romance with Jakobe, a brilliant woman from a wealthy Jewish family.
Nick and I explore:
- Why Per is both “lucky” and cursed by self-sabotage
- Jakobe’s role as lover, mentor, and tragic figure
- The tension between rural tradition and modern progress in Denmark
- How the novel anticipates modern psychology while rooted in 19th-century realism
- Pontoppidan’s trilogy and why A Fortunate Man deserves a place alongside Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Chekhov
Nick also shares exciting news on upcoming big books from NYRB, including rediscoveries by Gabriele Tergit and Manuel Mujica Laínez.
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Episode Highlights
- Per’s brilliance vs. his depressive self-sabotage
- Love and mentorship in his relationship with Jakobe
- Anti-Semitism and social class in turn-of-the-century Denmark
- The clash of engineering ambition with political compromise
- Pontoppidan’s overlooked place in world literature
A Fortunate Man (NYRB Classics) is available now — highly recommended for anyone ready to spend time inside one of the richest, most complex novels of modern Europe.
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